Patriotism does NOT mean clutching at any straw to excuse Greek incompetence for the mess we are in.

We all knew that it was too good to be true, and we should have suspected something was wrong way back. Me too. When banks called me up to offer me unsecured credit cards it should have been an alarm bell. When the Post Office Savings Bank offered me a 35 year mortgage when I was 55, it should have set off major alarms.

We knew, but said nothing. Easy credit from the EU was used locally to create unsustainable banking "products" and dubious management tactics allowed these to be sold on to the public. The public KNEW this was not kosher, but said nothing and took the vacation loans, car loans, home repair loans, credit cards. The national debt went from 40 per cent of GDP to 120 per cent in less than a decade.

Blaming anyone else is bullshit patriotism. The responsibility is ours. Recognising that simple fact is the first step out of the mess. Denying reality is a sure way to total bankruptcy.

Just a couple remarks and questions.

Aren't credit cards unsecured everywhere and given on the purpose of serviceability?

I have never heard of anyone offering security for a Credit Card anywhere.

Secondly, home loans are secured against a property so it shouldn't matter if the person is old. If they die, the Bank is protected by the caveats on the Title Deed.

Patriotism does NOT mean clutching at any straw to excuse Greek incompetence for the mess we are in.

We all knew that it was too good to be true, and we should have suspected something was wrong way back. Me too. When banks called me up to offer me unsecured credit cards it should have been an alarm bell. When the Post Office Savings Bank offered me a 35 year mortgage when I was 55, it should have set off major alarms.

We knew, but said nothing. Easy credit from the EU was used locally to create unsustainable banking "products" and dubious management tactics allowed these to be sold on to the public. The public KNEW this was not kosher, but said nothing and took the vacation loans, car loans, home repair loans, credit cards. The national debt went from 40 per cent of GDP to 120 per cent in less than a decade.

Blaming anyone else is bullshit patriotism. The responsibility is ours. Recognising that simple fact is the first step out of the mess. Denying reality is a sure way to total bankruptcy.

I don't disagree that easy money/loans/credit/mortgages are at the heart of the economic crisis which keeps the poor poorer. What I disagree with you about is the implication that this is a Greek-only problem. Exactly the same conditions (and even easier yet) apply elsewhere. You've already been shown the evidence that Greeks have indulged far less in 'easy money' than anyone else in the EU.

And it's not 'Patriotism' speaking when I feel aggrieved that only one country - Greece - is singled out (by you and the media) as responsible for all these wrongs - it's my common sense and healthy scepticism that there is something very wrong in the Global system and Greece actually has nothing to do with it!

As for Greece being singled out, GIG you are dead wrong. There were other countries that got into financial quagmires, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal, Spain. Greece is the laggard. Dozens of commentators, left and right, point out that most of the reforms AGREED with the Troika, are beneficial and should have been udnertaken by Greece years ago, even if there was no financial problem. Five years into the crisis and the reforms are still pending.

Are all these GREEK commentators singling out Greece and promoting foreign interests? The philosopher Ramphos, journalists like Falireas, Stangos, Mandravelis, Papahelas, Bogdanos, Papademetriou, Papandropoulos, all of them are Merkelists? Have you even read anything they wrote?

You think it is patriotic to let the country sink into irreversible drachma driven squalor than try to do something to save it?

You ever think how the air force and the navy will get fuel to carry out daily interceptions if Greece falls out of the Euro? Do you care? Many of you staunch anti mnemoniakoi seem to not give a crap about the daily violations of air and sea space and how the minimum counter measures require a steady stream of hard currency to maintain.

That inimitable "there is money" from left winger Papandreou and the idiotic non government from October 2009 till the Kastellorizo bankruptcy announcement of 2010.

The off the wall belief of left wing Venizelos that he could kick out the Troika, and then went to beg them for a deal.

The shocking pronouncement of left wing minister o finance, to the international press, that the Greek economy is the Titanic, while he was trying to find international finance!

And the surrealistic promises of this current mob- 750 Euro minimum wage, abolition of the property tax, tearing up the Mnemonio with one law containing one article, the six months of inertia that followed and turned a 1 billion deal (Hardouvelis email agreement) into an 80 billion new loan disaster, bringing in capital controls, and they present it as a face saving victory. They agreed to put VAT 23 per cent on education, for fuck's sake, in a country that has almost all private kindergartens.

Who but the left!!!! Their dogma stands above reality, for them if there is a conflict between the two then reality had better back down. No wonder we are in the shit.

You need to take a more detailed and critical look at this country and the culture that has developed in the post junta years, most of which were under left wing governments, from 1981 almost uninterrupted till now.

You are an education professional I believe, do you agree with the principle that the pursuit of excellence in education is a character taint? That there should be no system of teacher evaluation, that failed students should be entitled to remain in university ad infinitum? This is the official position of the current minister of education, who also managed to find cushy government positions for his current and former "partners". Compare this country's achievements to those of a similar sized nation in the EU, like Austria, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, it makes you want to puke. Given the human talent and the resources Greece should have been far ahead. But they believed schmucks who promise progress with no excellence, results with no effort and look where we are now. Begging.

I've been saying pretty much the same thing as you Mikitas from before the crisis when Greece was supposedly "booming" because the country had nothing to fall back on and the entire political and social system is corrupted.

Unfortunately, back then, you would be labelled as anti-patriotic. I even said at one long that because Greeks don't want to be Governed in a conventional way, that the Junta of 1967 to 1974 was the best thing for them and that perhaps a Junta Governmennt should be re-instated because it beats the current level of idiotic tit for tat discussions in the Greek Parliament. Don't get me wrong, democracy is great but not every country should be democratic.

I have absolutely no idea why Greeks are the way they are in Greece. It's like a huge Ottoman Hangover. And yet, the Greek Diaspora in Australia, USA, Canada and Sweden is literally thriving. They have literally outperformed many in many ways from Business to education. Can someone please explain that anomaly to me please? What is the difference between Greece and those other countries?

I swear, if the Greek Army sends some Tanks into Syntagma and through the front doors of Parliament then I will be on their side. Send the lot of them to Leros Concentration Camp! Traitors!

When Greeks dumped ND because of its willingness to cooperate with EZ, even though most Greeks support the Euro, Greece was headed out of recession. So the reform program was actually working with some light at the end of the tunnel. But that was all pissed up the wall with Greece new anti austerity approach from the Tsipras Government who now has backflipped and adopted the original stance of ND.

So please tell me what the point was of the last 12 months? It was all just a waste of time and Greece went backwards a couple of years which means that a lot of the sacrifice of the last 5 years was just wasted and now we are back to square one.

"a huge Ottoman Hangover" that is precisely what it is. At one level Greeks have not realised that the Turks are gone and they are now an independent nation. Not my exclusive idea, former foreign minister Dora Bacoyannis wrote as much in Kathimerini a few years ago.

The other is their prime ministeiral system that promotes discord, bringing parliament and argumentative politics to center stage. A system like Cyprus, presidential, with total separation between the executive and parliament would do much to push aside this institutionalised discord, the tit for tat you mention.

The education system, being left dominated, promotes the passe marxist theories that everything on earth is a result of the old thesis-antithesis-synthesis process and thus brings conflict and discord even at the most mundane things, like the design of street signs.

WHen Greeks go overseas and are faced with the stark choice of like or lump it they do brilliantly well. They lump it and like it and shut their mouths and make money and achieve a lot. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

Nikitas wrote:WHen Greeks go overseas and are faced with the stark choice of like or lump it they do brilliantly well. They lump it and like it and shut their mouths and make money and achieve a lot. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

Basically you are back to what we discussed earlier that Greeks abroad work like slaves. My reckoning on that is that they focus on finding a way to return home (to Greece/Cyprus) and hence are driven to work hard with that goal in mind. At home, in Greece, they don't feel driven by that need so they are more creative - hence produce kids with great minds ... which leave .... and then they strive, work hard, to return. Catch 22.

Nikitas wrote:WHen Greeks go overseas and are faced with the stark choice of like or lump it they do brilliantly well. They lump it and like it and shut their mouths and make money and achieve a lot. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

Basically you are back to what we discussed earlier that Greeks abroad work like slaves. My reckoning on that is that they focus on finding a way to return home (to Greece/Cyprus) and hence are driven to work hard with that goal in mind. At home, in Greece, they don't feel driven by that need so they are more creative - hence produce kids with great minds ... which leave .... and then they strive, work hard, to return. Catch 22.

I reckon that in all likelihood that you reckon wrong.

Not many strive to return at all, and are quite happy where they are. They are pretty wealthy too, so money for many of them is not an issue at all if they wanted to return to Greece.

Of course many have property in Greece and quite a few have holiday homes too. They get their annual fix and go back.

Very few have returned, of which most hated it, and returned back.

Oh mean if you live in Sydney, Melbourne, or New York let's say, you're not returning to Athens or anywhere else in Greece are you?

But that's just all a hunch dear! How the hell would I know?

But let me tell you this, if all Australian Greeks went to Greece tomorrow and bought all their money with them, there would be no financial crisis in Greece.